TÜBİTAK: At the confluence of events of our age
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Ocak 22, 2009 00:00
At a time when President Obama is settling into a policy agenda that includes a new "green" energy policy for the United States and Russia and Ukraine maintain their battle of wills over gas pricing, average Turks suffer a 73 percent rise in the cost of heating a household and debate rages about a project called "Nabucco," we suggest a break.
If you missed our story yesterday on the Turkish Scientific and Technological Research Council, or TÜBİTAK, and hybrid vehicle research you should go to the Internet and fetch it: www.hurriyetdailynews.com.
Without a great deal of fanfare, TÜBİTAK has been working on technology to help Turkey’s automotive sector produce diesel-electric hybrid buses A two-year-old project conducted in partnership with Istanbul Technical University has already produced a small batch of prototype hybrid buses. The research has moved into the phase of comparative research. TÜBİTAK will be working to establish concrete data on the virtues of this new technology, the savings that can accrue to operators of bus fleets and the advantages that flow to the environment.
Efficiencies derive from the fact that batteries charge when the vehicle is going downhill and time spent stalled in traffic does not require an operating motor. That these technologies have the potential to make a dent in the problems of air quality in Turkish cities is self-evident.
Yesterday we reported that Hamdi Uçarol, the head of the project, noted that there are already more than 1 million "hybrid" vehicles in service in Europe and the United States. "If studies and research continue in Turkey, we will catch up with those countries," he said.
Such research, and such enthusiasm, make sense for any number of reasons. We would note that Turkey’s automotive sector, while struggling with the current economic crisis, has nonetheless surpassed textiles to become the driver of Turkey’s export economy. Plans and hopes for expanded public transportation both in the metropolis of Istanbul and other large cities are many. The need is urgent from an urban planning perspective; but it bears keeping in mind that the market for smart vehicles in Turkey is certainly Europe’s largest. The demand for public transportation can be an incubator for new enterprises within the automotive sector and effectively help finance the transformation of that sector.
This bit of research at TÜBİTAK may be largely unheralded and it would be easy to ignore in the face of the sheer pace of events on Turkey’s domestic and international agenda. It should not be.
This seemingly mundane research is at the confluence of all the trends and struggles that define our age: rapid urbanization, environmental restoration, reduction of carbon emissions and new and thoughtful technologies to generate, store and distribute energy. We salute the work of TÜBİTAK.
Without a great deal of fanfare, TÜBİTAK has been working on technology to help Turkey’s automotive sector produce diesel-electric hybrid buses A two-year-old project conducted in partnership with Istanbul Technical University has already produced a small batch of prototype hybrid buses. The research has moved into the phase of comparative research. TÜBİTAK will be working to establish concrete data on the virtues of this new technology, the savings that can accrue to operators of bus fleets and the advantages that flow to the environment.
Efficiencies derive from the fact that batteries charge when the vehicle is going downhill and time spent stalled in traffic does not require an operating motor. That these technologies have the potential to make a dent in the problems of air quality in Turkish cities is self-evident.
Yesterday we reported that Hamdi Uçarol, the head of the project, noted that there are already more than 1 million "hybrid" vehicles in service in Europe and the United States. "If studies and research continue in Turkey, we will catch up with those countries," he said.
Such research, and such enthusiasm, make sense for any number of reasons. We would note that Turkey’s automotive sector, while struggling with the current economic crisis, has nonetheless surpassed textiles to become the driver of Turkey’s export economy. Plans and hopes for expanded public transportation both in the metropolis of Istanbul and other large cities are many. The need is urgent from an urban planning perspective; but it bears keeping in mind that the market for smart vehicles in Turkey is certainly Europe’s largest. The demand for public transportation can be an incubator for new enterprises within the automotive sector and effectively help finance the transformation of that sector.
This bit of research at TÜBİTAK may be largely unheralded and it would be easy to ignore in the face of the sheer pace of events on Turkey’s domestic and international agenda. It should not be.
This seemingly mundane research is at the confluence of all the trends and struggles that define our age: rapid urbanization, environmental restoration, reduction of carbon emissions and new and thoughtful technologies to generate, store and distribute energy. We salute the work of TÜBİTAK.